Bonneville cutthroat trout, caught in Mill Creek. By Bobby Boone I learned to fly fish when I turned ten years old. I caught nothing. I wasn’t even sure if I really liked it. However, three years later, my first time casting a fly in Utah would ensure that I would fall in love with the…
A fat and happy Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat trout. By Chris Hunt Two summers ago, as I walked along a small alpine creek in the Caribou Range here in eastern Idaho, I spied what may rightly be called the sexiest stretch of trout water I’ve ever seen. The stream—by itself a modest flow—pushes down a…
Trout Unlimited and the Caribou-Targhee National Forest announced today that the Tincup Creek Stream Restoration Project’s second phase is currently under way in eastern Idaho. The project is a large-scale, multi-phased project begun in 2017 to improve ecosystem function and habitat for native cutthroat trout and other native fish species on four miles of degraded…
A native Yellowstone cutthroat trout. A backcountry treasure. Photo by Chris Hunt. By Chris Hunt Who knows how many times I’d driven over the little creek as it flows southeast through an arched culvert toward its eventual confluence with the mighty Yellowstone River. A hundred? At least a hundred. And every time, I made a…
Conservation might seem like a straight-forward enterprise, but anybody who has worked to protect or restore even a single stream in a larger watershed knows that it is actually quite nuanced. Anything involving people and the waters and fish they love is going to be complicated. In southwest Colorado, that’s no different. This week, on…
We don’t all have trout fisheries in our backyards or even close to home. But in many “developed” watersheds across America, bottom-release dams designed for hydropower or flood control create stretches of cold rivers that can and do support healthy populations of introduced trout. I suppose we could debate the merits of introducing a non-native…
Diana Miller with a migratory Yellowstone cutthroat caught in late June in the Thorofare area of the Bridger Teton National Forest in Wyoming. Dave Sweet photo.